Nitrogen oxides are common pollutants and are widely found in industrial waste gases. Such oxides form a very important environmental problem and are a contributor, along with sulfur oxides, to environmental degradation through the climatic process known as "acid rain". Therefore, for environmental reasons, control of nitrogen oxides is very important.
Typically, nitrogen oxides are removed from industrial waste gases by catalytic reduction to nitrogen and water. However, for such processes to function properly, it is necessary to maintain the waste gas at a relatively high temperature, for example about 700.degree.-900.degree. F. An example of one such process is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,567,367 of Kandell et al.
The use of a high temperature process such as shown in the Kandell patent has many disadvantages. Usually, fuel must be expended to keep the gases to be treated in the operating temperatures range. Once the gases have been passed over the catalyst, it is then necessary either to vent hot gas (with the concomitant loss of heat) or else to supply expensive waste heat recovery apparatus.
It is not possible to run conventional processes at ambient temperatures, because the catalyst rapidly becomes poisoned if there is any moisture in the gas stream being treated.
The invention permits reduction of nitrogen oxides at ambient or near ambient temperatures and pressures, although it can also operate at slightly elevated temperatures and pressures if desired. A particular advantage of the invention is that it permits reduction of nitrogen oxides even when oxygen is present, provided that the operating conditions are chosen correctly as discussed below.
The invention makes use of noble metal catalysts on a hydrophobic support. Hydrophobic catalyst supports are already known for other purposes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,025,560 of Rolston et al. shows a catalyst for the exchange of hydrogen isotopes between a gas stream and a water stream, where the catalyst support is an inherently hydrophobic material such as cubes of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), polyethylene or the like. European Patent application No. 0015585 of Hitachi Inc. shows catalysts similar to those of Rolston for other types of gas-liquid reactions. An activated carbon catalyst, which has been reacted with a monomer which forms hydrophobic polymers, is disclosed for carbon monoxide oxidation in U.S. Pat. No. 4,652,537 of Tamura.
Catalysts on hydrophobic supports have not previously been proposed for the reduction of nitrogen oxides. However, it has now been discovered that they have particular advantages in the reduction of nitrogen oxides, in that they will function at lower temperatures than known catalysts, thus avoiding the necessity of pre-heating the gas to be treated. Thus, the present process can be carried out at temperatures between 0.degree. and 200.degree. C. At such temperatures these catalysts also function in the presence of oxygen, selectively to reduce nitrogen oxides instead of oxygen. If there is oxygen present, some oxygen will be reduced, and this effect increases with increasing oxygen concentration. However, oxygen concentrations of up to 100 times the concentration of hydrogen, on a volume % basis, and which do not exceed 20% by volume of the feed gas, do not cause severe loss of selectivity at the temperatures of this process.